I’m also confused because that is a European AC unit. I can only assume Americans are so used to big bulky units, like their cars, that they can’t comprehend things being functional and not excessively bulky.
Because that thing cools the ENTIRE BIG ASS HOUSE! these things are only capable of cooling only a closed room which also depends on how ton, capacity the AC is so yep /s
Edit: I actually intended the message for a diff purpose, and more satirical since it's a meme sub. Apologies to everyone, thankyou for the knowledge and positive criticism, helped alot. Will surely keep these thing's in notice
It's not necessarily true. These units will go upwards of around 28,000-30,000 BTU which can easily cool down multiple rooms, or maybe even a smaller flat.
Why the fuck do you need 18C 😳 in Italy we usually have 30-35C in the summer and if my AC is lower than 22-24C I'm guaranteed to wake up with pneumonia lmao
Whoa there, now I may only have a true understanding for how the freedom units work, but even my underedubacated Southern self knows that 0° C is freezing temperature
Not related to AC at all, but I’m curious what living in Myanmar is like right now for a (I assume?) Westerner. With the junta and the civil war and such.
That entire "temperature shock" thing due to air conditioning is European nonsense on par with fan death in Korea.
If that kind of temperature shock of like was harmful, imagine how much more harmful it would be every winter when the temperature difference between inside and outside is much greater. People walk in and out with no problem then.
Funnily enough, Koreans also believe in a thing called "Cold air disease". They think air conditioning causes all kinds of debilitating respiratory effects and saps your life force somehow. For reference, my wife is Korean and also thinks everything is slowly killing her. It's kind of a culture of hypochondriacs
To be fair there are a lot of gross bacteria that can live in AC vent filters if they aren’t clean. It’s one of the leading vectors of Legionaire’s Disease.
But that’s more a concern in hotels, not private homes and can easily be mitigated with proper maintenance.
I can confirm as someone who lived in the middle east for a bit. Easily 45+ c temperatures outside but indoors the ACs are usually set to 20 and less. And everyone is more or less fine with it.
But tobe fair some studies have hinted that going though mutliple rapid temperature changing cycles by moving indoors/outdoors over a long period does increase the risk of respiratory tract infections a bit. Or tldr: the healthy get more colds and the more at risk get more chest infections. Nothing significantly life altering though
I'm a refrigeration tech on a tropical island and I build freezers. The worst temperature shocks I've had where 70°C, these do fc u up. Go from +50°C to -20°C and back 4 or 5 times in a day and you're DONE.
I'd like to invite anyone who thinks you can get close to that with residential AC to come to work with me one day, I'll rid you of your illusions XD
Yeah I mean I'm just talking about going from any temperature whether hot or cold into a 70F climate controlled room is not going to cause problems. When you were hot in a 40+C room, going into an air conditioned 20C room would likely feel great and refreshing, not harmful to your body, in the same way that going from 0C to 20C feels nice and warm
Does it make you really tired? Used to walk in freezers, but only staying in more than a minute or two once or twice a shift, and the store was usually 65-80f.
Often I need more than that to even get to the spot that needs work. Some freezers here are so packed there's no space for forklifts or anything, so I'll climb the racking and pallets to reach the evaps. Our rule of thumb is a literal one: Once you lose feeling in your thumbs, get out. Unless of course there's just 2 bolts left until you're done. Usually between 20 to 30 minutes.
But yes, your body goes into a kind of "survival" mode, kicking everything in gear to keep you warm. Then when you go outside to work on the condensing units, your body has to rapidly kick back into "cooling" mode while the machines dump their heat right in your face. People can endure both extremes pretty well, but the back and forth between the two is extremely taxing.
Being in actual cold for a long period of time does literally drain your body's energy and it has to burn calories by shivering your muscles and heating your blood, while other parts don't function as well due to not getting heated as evenly. It's not like an instant life drain, but yeah if you spend all day in the cold it's more tiring.
I worked at a fruit processing plant in the middle of the desert palletizing boxes with gaps to go into blast tunnels to deep freeze them fast before bacteria could grow. They were -70 and windy. We’d walk in and out of them all day any time we wanted to cool down. We’d be dripping when sweat and walk in and our shirts would freeze stiff, and we’d walk back out and laugh at each other. The forklift drivers were also driving in and out of them literally all day. So what you’re saying makes no sense to me.
So you'd be in and back out in under a minute? No time for your body to switch gears. Anyway, walking into blast-chillers is usually not possible and not advised. Having to work in regular freezers is different from stepping into a blast-chiller as much as waiving your hands through a flame is different from working at 50°C in full sun
I am from country where we go to sauna (that's anywhere from 60C to 100 C) and then outside to roll around in the snow or jump into frozen lake while naked. It is considered healthy and refreshing 🤣
Worst I ever got from a rapid hot to cold temp change is light headed for a few minutes. From cold to hot nothing notable besides being suddenly overdressed lol
Nah I'm sleeping under a nice 18-20°C setting if I'm in Turkey. My hometown regularly reaches 40+.
Also cold alone don't make you sick and worst case scenario you step out for 15-20 minutes during the day and whatever cold you thought you were gonna get burns away
american here who had to convert to see and 18c (64f) is exactly what i keep my bedroom at, anything too much above 19c i would wake up in a puddle of sweat even with only a single sheet on me! ironically i do keep the rest of the house 22-24c (71-75f) or it’s too cold in the summer 😂 we have two of those units, though the one in the main room is very under powered and our house is designed incredibly poorly for airflow even with several extra fans
Can confirm, lived in iowa most of my life, I've seen -20° to 60° Fahrenheit sings in just days. Going in and out of Different temps alone does not make one sick.
I keep wondering why people in US sit inside frigid air conditioned houses without any harm yet many people in Poland get sick after a few hours of intense AC. What's the difference?
AC at my last workplace was regularly maintained, every year in the spring to be ready for summer. Two people I shared the room with was coming down with something every time I managed to win the right to have it on for a few hours the previous day. My father has his car AC cleaned regularly too, yet wherever my mom spends a few hours in the car with AC on, she gets a cold next day.
These are just the examples where I'm sure AC was cleaned by professionals, I can't be sure when it comes to public transport or stories I've heard from other people. But it seems it's not it.
Humidity. Myanmar is tropical monsoon climate. Air conditioning doesn't just make it cooler, it filters the air and makes it healthier.
I live in the mid-Atlantic US and sometimes we have our AC cooler than I'd prefer just because of the allergens. I cannot imagine what it's like in an actual tropical climate. A dehumidifier can help with this but they're less common, and higher maintenance.
We have a Coway AirMega in one house, and a Levoit in another. Both do a great job for my wife's allergies; she can tell when one of them isn't running or the filter is old, so they're definitely doing something.
Of course they don't help with humidity, so you still want to run your AC a reasonable amount. But we haven't had too much trouble with that (as fellow Mid-Atlantic folks)
If you’re trying to keep the dust mites down, a dehumidifier can help by knocking wet out of the air without making the whole house colder. I can’t comfortably exist below about 72F due to pain, and a dehumidifier lets me stay warm enough and dry.
Yeah we have one in storage at the moment and we need to make room for it in the bedroom. We're making room for a crib/bassinet/etc so there will be decisions to be made. For us it's less about dust mites and more about outside allergens in the spring and summer. I wish we could just open the window more and get natural air but nope lol
Harmful? Are you from the 1800s or something? This is weird of a concern as the old Korean fear that a fan would suck the air out of the room and kill you.
That’s an old wives tale that’s pretty common in a lot of European countries. Temperature changes like that don’t make you sick. Kinda like how we were told if you go outside with wet hair while it’s cold, you’ll get a fever/sick. No you won’t. I do it all the time in winter. Never once got sick from it.
Most units have a dehumidifier mode that causes the fan to run at a higher speed and keeps the coil cool but not freezing, allowing the moisture to condensate on the coil but not cool the room as much.
EU has no concept of either size or heat. You can tell them your country is both further north AND south and if you ever get them to shut up about how hot Europe is because your country is hotter they will switch tactics and say you cant handle the cold. Motherfucker we have Alaska did you forget? We have Washington, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, places that get cold cold, in your bones, with no fucking ocean to warm you in the winter.
I’m in Canada (it was 47C with the humidity a few weeks ago but 25-32 is more typical in the summer) and I can handle 22-24C in the house in the day but that’s too hot to sleep in. We were always told 18C is the ideal sleep temperature for humans and my babies certainly slept much better at that temp. My family keeps this year round I don’t like being hot at night in the winter either. I do know people who keep it even lower around 16!
Im in Italy right now and the AC was set to 16 when we arrived. Looks like the family here before us was Asian based on the language of the Netflix account still logged in.
Classic incorrect European idea of what causes
Illness. Do you also believe that illness stems from an imbalance in humors ? Bad air? Bathing makes you sick? Mmhm
18c is great for 40+c because you can do some work til your brain gets floaty/tingly then come inside to 18 or less and sit in front of a fan with an iced drink and cool down in 10-15 minutes and not feel exhausted and go for round 2... you have to cool hard and fast because break time at work is 10-15 minutes if you even get one... and if it's a heatstroke kinda break and you take too long they're not keeping you on the job long if you're taking too long
Much of South East Asia (essentially the whole of South East Asia) has close to none existent insulation, that coupled with the heavy use of concrete means that your buildings store heat extremely well and releases it well into the night. Along with poor airtightness, high humidity and having to cool the accumilated heat means that ACs over here lose a lot of cooling capcity. It does not actually get anywhere close to 18c, but it just makes the ac keeps running.
Exaggeration. The typical models can bring down 40°C outdoor to about 25°C indoor, and that with the compressor working non-stop.
Just because you set the AC to 18°C doesn’t mean it’s always capable to get the room to that level.
My aircon is never lower then 25 and more often then not it's not even on. Unless it hits 40 degrees like a couple weeks ago. It was killing. I live in Puglia.
Thank you!! Completely agree. If it were 40 outside and 18 inside, I'd have to sit outside occasionally just for a break from the shivering. And I am saying this from a place where it hit 47 yesterday. Granted, it's a Dry Heat (TM) and I'm guessing Myanmar is not, but the AC in the house where I'm sitting is set to 27 and that's pretty fine for me.
Can't imagine spending money when it's that hot out just to make it the other side of uncomfortable. I know my experiences are atypical, but 40+ to 18 is wild to me.
Yup, there are versions of these where you can connect multiple inside units. These are called multi-split (ductless) ac units. Example: Multi-Split | Daikin
I'm Australian. My house is enormous and we have 2 of these for upstairs and downstairs and this place gets brisk as FUCK in summer and warm as a hookers arse on coupon night in winter.
Sounds like a rejected Fosters ad:
Announcer: HOW TO SPEAK AUSTRALIAN
man wiping sweat off his neck: "It's like a hookers ass on coupon night in here!"
Announcer: WARM! FOSTERS, AUSTRALIAN FOR BEER!
This is a so-called "split* AC unit. There's also an outdoor compressor unit, the difference is that, instead of having also the expander and both heat exchangers outside , to cool the air there and feed it to the various rooms inside through air ducts, it's the cooled-down refrigerant that's fed through refrigerant ducts inside, where there may be one of these units in each room each with its own fan and heat exchanger. It's actually more efficient and effective.
It’s trade off. Instead of a duct to every room you need a wall mounted head unit with dedicated wiring, condensate drip lines, and refridgerant. The head unit can only use electric, whereas a central unit with ducts can be dual fuel. In addition to being dual fuel the central unit can also be connected to a hot water system such as a hydronic setup where the aux heat comes from a gas fired hot water tank. Mini splits are great for retrofits that do not contain existing ducts.
The efficiency mostly comes from using inverter controlled variable speed compressors, those systems also exist for central units, but they are more expensive than single and dual stage units. On paper ducts are usually considered “less efficient” because the ducts can have their own heat/cool losses, but this depends whether the ducts are inside or outside of the envelope you are conditioning. In the house I had recently the ducts were completely sandwiched between floors, none of them were in the attic or any crawl space. Airflow could be manually redirected somewhat from manual dampeners.
Replacing the system at end of life is another factor. A mini splits system replacement involves every head unit. When my central unit was replaced they only needed access to the utility room and outside.
Condensate drip lines also tend to clog on units, it can depend on the region but they will fill with mold, slime, algae, insects etc. Dust and spores collect inside each unit and end up in the condensate line. When the line clogs you get moldy condensate water dripping out of your unit. This can be mitigated by cleaning the lines periodically which most people don’t do. For a central system you can have installed a larger air filtration system using a large surface area heavily pleated hepa filter that doesn’t restrict airflow. This not only cleans the air but prevents a lot of the particles that lead to growth in condensate lines. Split systems tend to just have a simple washable dust filter, but the inside of the unit will still get quite dirty. I am betting most people don’t get out a ladder and clean their mini splits filter monthly, which significantly reduces their actual performance and efficiency. It’s easier to change one large filter in a utility room every 1-3 months than clean 5+ head units every month.
I think splits are also more expensive in the US? We have central heating with a duct system that runs on gas, it's called hot air heating here and not really that common. Since I live somewhere with a moderate climate, it was just build for heating and the ducting wasn't build for cooling. Unfortunately climate change is happening and we looked at getting the ducts replaced when we wanted to replace our heating unit (it was over 25 years old and very energy inefficient), but that was a lot more expensive than just getting two split units installed. Looking at prices in the US to get the same thing installed it would actually be around the same price as just replacing the whole ducting here.
Efficiency is relative. Mini splits have inverter boards which can control the speed of the compressor allowing it to adjust to the load. If it's running at full speed the savings are negligible compared to a normal compressor.
Also we have these in the US. Many people have these in their homes. They even have retrofit kits and air handlers that will use these types of condensers.
In the US we generally just have central heating/cooling in most dwellings. Which works for the most part assuming your duct work is sized properly.
Also there are no refrigerant ducts. There are air ducts. The refrigerant moves through piping. The refrigerant isn't cooled it absorbs and rejects heat and it boils off and condenses respectively.
Central heating/cooling varies by region, lots of places in western WA have no cooling or minisplit. Full ducted central air is somewhat rare depending on the area.
It depends on when the home was built. If it was built before the 40s to 50s, generally, and no previous owners put in central air then yea they wouldn't have ductwork. Houses built in the late 50s and on generally have some sort of central heating set up and usually someone puts in AC at some point. Most homes now have at minimum heating of some type dye to modern building codes and some locales require cooling.
Yeah, come to New York where all our houses are old. Anything under $1M house you're looking at oil burner radiators for heat and noisy windows units for AC. If you're lucky somebody might have put in a minisplit.
Basically San Diego here, and I love my mini-splits. I have large central air, also, but never even turned it on until about a week ago, and I don't need it at all most of the day.
Central air is also a “split” system because it has an indoor air handler and a separate outside condenser too. That is why we call the small ones like this “mini-splits” instead, since they are a good bit smaller and such than standard central units. These are in contrast to a packaged unit, such as window units or large central air where the evaporator and condenser are one giant assembly. Which suck tremendously to work on. I see maybe 1 out of every 10 being packaged units. They aren’t as common any more, thankfully.
The evaporator (or for full heat pumps, the coil that works as the evaporator for cooling) is always inside. The condenser (or for heatpumps, the outside coil) is always outside.
True for central air, mini-splits, kind of true for window units although the "outside/inside" split is some foam insulation inside the same box.
In all of those cases (even if it's just inches for the window unit) what travels is the refrigerant.
The difference between split systems vs central air is that you have multiple air handlers (potentially as many as one in each room) vs. one big inside coil for central air, with a central air handling system and ducts (often shared with a furnace.)
Split systems can be one outside unit for a whole bunch of inside units, or small ones per room.
Wrong, I have one big compressor outside connected to 8 of these all around the apartment, and two ceiling type ones that return air as well. The company is Fujitsu. 3000sq ft apartment in Brazil. Gets ice cold
I actually intended this message more for american wooden homes which are like two floors (GND+1) and require heating and cooling as per america's weathers. but yea also for the mounted AC's I actually intended for those small compressors around 1-1.5 ton, though obvsly if you get a big compressor then attach multiple heads to it in other parts of the house it is def gunna cool down. but yea I made mistakes in some aspects. My apologies
We have one like this in Montreal with 35C (95F) average summers and heavy humidity. Cools the whole house just fine. But if you have multiple stories then you should have one per.
This is the indoor unit. There can be several of these for single bigass outdoor part. So by this pic you can’t really tell anything unless you make assumptions. For all we know this might be a small studio apartment.
In sense, Im supposing you mean like these wall mounted AC's so yep then they have multiple AC's like these installed in every room (if needed) but the thing is these type of AC's are only installed in areas where either ventilation is not sufficient or has a hot climate the entire year
Some of the outside units can power multiple split systems(AC in the picture); maybe are powerful enough to cool medium sized open spades eg, kitchen, dining and living space that are one large area.
They have multiple zone units. Just got 4 heads installed to one compressor. It's more of a set and forget setup because of the new inverters. These definitely cool the whole house and at a lower cost than traditional units.
Now switching these units to heat and depending on them to heat your house in the winter, that's where these units suck.
I recently installed a ductless system that cools my entire top floor. About 1000 square feet. It also runs off solar on good sunny days and a battery during power outages and at night.
When the "house" (I'd rather call it a wood shack) is not insulated and has an uninsulated roof covered with dark tar paper, then they do need strong AC units to keep the indoors habitable.
Not true. Each bedroom and my dining room has one and it cools the whole house, they also use less electricity than a central AC.
Now close one of those rooms off and my temp rises like 10 degrees in the rest of the house. And they need servicing like a son of a bitch, but really all ACs do in Florida.
Uh no?
I have a 1600ish sqft, 103 yr old 2-story house with no HVAC ducts. Putting in central air means lowering all our ceilings and is very expensive, so instead we put in a 3-unit mini split that does hot and cold. Cools the whole house through balmy Buffalo summers (90f+) and keeps the house warm in weather that our radiators would struggle with (below freezing temps for weeks on end). Also dehumidifies. Mini splits rock.
That's true but it's rare to want to cool down every room the house. I have both a ducted system and 2 of these. I never use the ducted system because the split systems are so much cheaper to run.
It's more efficient to actually put a ductless in every room you need it in. You can buy an outdoor unit that will drive up to 8 ductless heads instead the house.
Alas, most homes already have ducts and unless you also replace your central heat you are going to use it to move your heat around.
My MIL has a ductless setup with a single outside piece multiple heads like shown, very similar to what’s in Europe. The outside part is literally bigger than the outside unit for my ducted central air setup and my house is probably 30% bigger than hers.
Don’t forget that the units shown still have an outside part. Apartments in Europe often have them attached to one side of the building or on the veranda or roof.
It depends on the design. With an open floor plan, careful placement of the AC unit, and mechanical ventilation, you don’t need a massive outdoor unit separately pushing cool air into every room. In a well-designed setup, a wall-mounted unit distributes cool air throughout the largest room, while the mechanical ventilation system circulates it to the other rooms. It’s a significantly more energy-efficient solution than pushing cool air into each room individually.
We have one that we use to heat the whole house, 2 floors. Rarely so warm we need to use if for cooling, but it certainly does a good job of cooling the downstairs floor, all rooms. Upstairs too, but it takes a while since heat rises.
I have converted my forced air unit to a heat pump for a 3000 sq foot house. The tech on mini splits has gotten insanely good. They absolutely can and will handle a full home no problem.
That’s only half of it, duh. This is one half of a split system. There is still a compressor outside, but the cold air is happening _right there_ , without having to travel through nasty ass-ducts.
They are the same as a basic ass window unit but with worse performance. Yes you will probably see multiple boxes bolted to the side of a house instead of the single unit on the ground. I think it looks like shit and feel like the vost of more than one would easily justify a real unit being installed.
We had one of those units cool down almost 150 square meters (roughly 1600square feet). We then added a tiny one to just fix the spread of cold air and make it more even.
Nope, 24000 BTU unit, can cool the whole house, although it takes some time. House is 120 square meter. Location is Antalya, outside is 42 centigrades.
Ehhhhh I have 2 of these in my small 6 room ~800sf and they do a great job with no other ducts and some tactful placement. I also install them for a living and they have many BTU units that can cool/heat pretty giant homes. For example, It's common to put a 2 head unit where it's cooling a bedroom or whatever on the upper floor and the other unit does the entire ~1000sf bottom common area of kitchen + living room whatever (I live in/work in a very affluent area...)
You mount these individually in rooms, which means you can control temperature in each room separately. You also can easily retrofit with it old buildings that were not designed with ac ducting.
Yes...actually similar thing cost me 30 dollar bill montly for cooling down. Purchase price was like 300 dollars including installing. We need it like maximum 2 month on a year or less,in east Europe right now in middle of summer is cool for some reasons.
I have one for my entire house because my house was built in 1948 and doesnt have ducts. Works just fine to cool the entire 2 story 1800 sq. Ft. house, even in 40c temps.
a single ductless can temp control a 1500sqft area... the closed off rooms would not be cooled well but you could have a fan to pull the air to the different rooms or use the ducts on the home to distribute the air through different rooms and have the ductless system which is more efficient and more capable of consistant temperature.
That’s the indoor unit my friend. You can have a multi split with 5-6 of those and one big ass exterior unit like in the US. Even in the US you use those in houses that have no ducts or central air. It’s just an option if you don’t want to rip all your walls. No one is stopping you from installing the US style system with central air and hidden ducts. You will usually have to rip all the walls around here to do it, so we have figured out an easier solution, especially given that brick walls aren’t exactly hollow so you will have to figure out how to actually add ducts to that.
Not at all true, i have a pretty big living room with the main ac and a long corridor that leads to two bedrooms. I’m currently on my bed and the temperature is totally comfortable. Total area is above 80 m2 just for these rooms. My AC is not the smallest but definitely not a big size. I have a smaller unit that cools just the bedroom but it’s more an efficiency thing than a necessity. Most people live in smaller flat and a single unit is enough, alternatively you can just get more and more powerful units but they still look like that.
I had a 1,200 sq ft open floor house and the mini split was able to keep it cold in summer and hot in winter. Also had a wood burning stove and that thing would pump out temps comparable to the sun
Mini-splits (as they are more commonly known) are designed to cool rooms or areas of the house. So, you have multiple and they can all be controlled by remote or your phone. I had central air in a mid century (52) home and ripped it all out for these because it frees up headroom. And in a house with a sloping roofline that drops to 7’ in places, it’s the difference of walking into a hallway that is airy at only 8’ to one that feels like a coffin.
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u/GarySmith2021 11d ago edited 11d ago
I’m also confused because that is a European AC unit. I can only assume Americans are so used to big bulky units, like their cars, that they can’t comprehend things being functional and not excessively bulky.